Neighbors: Signs won’t halt Chesterfield speeders

CHESTERFIELD, Va. (WTVR) — Chesterfield leaders are trying to hit speeders in their wallets hoping additional fines will prompt them to ease up off of the gas pedal.

It’s a daily frustration for Chrystal Sturdifen and her neighbors on Bayview Drive. They tell CBS 6 News that they’re tired of drivers speeding through their community to cut across to Jessup Road.

As a result, they’ve turned to the county for help and signs alerting drivers that they will face an additional $200 fine if they speed through Bayview Driver are about to go up in the neighborhood.

“It is frustrating. When you’re playing outside and you have kids out here it’s upsetting because the speeders are going through and they’re not even trying to consider the fact that this is a neighborhood,” Mica Davis explained.

Davis said she is also concerned because on her end of the street near Bayview Drive and Turner Road there is a school bus stop. She says when speeders race down Bayview and when other drivers roll through the stop signs on Turner, it’s a disaster waiting to happen. She just doesn’t want to see any children get hurt.

Kim Sadler circulated a petition through her neighborhood and submitted it to the county.

VDOT collected data and confirmed that the 85th percentile speed of vehicles was over 30 miles per hour, confirming that a speeding problem exists.

“They come around that bend here and they don’t see anything on this road until they’re right up on top of it and it’s extremely scary ” Sadler said.

Sadler’s husband, Biff, said people seem to be in such a hurry and he’s fed up.

“We’re only one hundred fifty feet from the stop sign and people come by our house running 45, 50 miles per hour,” Sadler explained.

It’s nerve racking for the couple, whose daughter Sarah is in a wheelchair. Other parents say they too are leery about letting their children out to play and ride their bikes.

” I only allow them to go from one mailbox to the next. They can’t go around the bend. The hope is if a driver comes around they will see them and begin slowing down” Chrystal Sturdifen said.

CBS 6 News learned that in the past ten years seven Chesterfield neighborhoods have had those signs installed alerting drivers to the increased speeding fine.

Less than ten miles away from the Sadler’s neighborhood, warning signs went up last April along Telstar Drive.

Police said six months before that sign went up, one speeding ticket was issued and in the nine months since then, only one driver was ticketed.

Neighbors along Bayview, who will soon see those signs posted along their street, question how effective the signs are — and are convinced the county needs to do more to make their community safer.

“Speed bumps would be one of the things..It is definitely needed because I think sooner or later a child is going to get hit or there will be a terrible accident,” Donald Reed said.